Struck
by trufflemores
Summary: 2.19. Griffin Grey takes down a Speed-less Barry with one blow.


After his first memorable encounter with Zoom, Barry doesn't think anything can even register on his Richter scale of pain.

Griffin Grey powerfully, unapologetically disillusions him.

Exposed and overly reliant on his _run away if you fail_ methodology, Barry isn't prepared to stand off against Grey. When the shot misses, Barry has a terrible moment of realization, an overpowering sense of _run_ even when his legs do not move. It happens too quickly: the barrel smashes into Barry's chest, plowing him over and driving him against the concrete.

The pain is so intense he can't localize it; everything hurts, breaths shortened to vertiginous gasps. He waits for the next blow, the killing strike, but it never comes. Grey looks at Barry with panic in his eyes, face acquiring lines, hair reflecting his name. Before Barry can petition him – _we can help you_ – Grey takes off.

Without the adrenaline of a confrontation to center him, Barry's stoicism rapidly degenerates.

"Barry!"

Vision hazy, he picks up Joe and Cisco's approaching forms, a mixture of relief and pain dividing his focus. "Hey." He gasps as he tries to sit up, stating in a tight voice, "I think I need some medical attention." He groans when Joe helps him to his feet, legs shaking, each breath snipped, quick, nausea thick in his belly.

 _Don't throw up_ , he warns himself. The pain is already steep; vomiting will only make it worse. _Don't throw up_.

It's easier said than done. Barry's legs are fine, but each step kicks the pain in his ribs to a newly intolerable level. He hunches over, struggling to move against the sharp, splintering agony in his chest. It's reminiscent of Eiling's kinetic needles, but there is no outward object to focus his attention on. His skin feels cold, his heartrate slow and heavy, the lack of lightning hitting home when he climbs laboriously into the backseat of the van.

He finds the least unbearable position and promptly reconsiders, shifting restlessly on the seat, open-mouthed and panting. Cisco drives, Joe's hand on Barry's knee, silently offering support. Barry doesn't look out the window, eyes closed, one arm tucked loosely around his ribcage.

Something falters in his consciousness along the drive. He becomes less and less aware as each tense, hyperventilating breath fogs his vision. Cisco and Joe's voices fade, broadcasting from the other end of a fuzzy radio connection. Their conversation is indecipherable, but Barry doesn't try to focus in on it, settling for ignorance.

His chest feels weird, almost painless, but each jump in the road triggers a fresh wave of fire, reminding him that the swath of broken ribs is unaltered. He gasps in discomfort when they finally come to a halt. With a supreme effort of will, he does not scream when Joe helps haul him out of the van. Joe keeps a hand close, ready to catch him if he trips.

At Star Labs, the long walk to the cortex carries them through darkness and light. It's cool, almost cold, the steel walls retaining little heat. Barry keeps close to Joe, almost close enough to touch, benefiting from his warmth. He didn't realize how compensatory his speed was: how greatly it impacted his temperature regulation.

In a vague, unhurried way, he feels numbness sink into his skin. When Joe guides him onto a bed, Barry sees the motions, but he can't feel it. He can't distinguish anything from his periphery, fogged over, but being stationary brings his discomfort back full force. Hunching over as much as he dares, he groans.

A minute – an hour, ten hours, a lifetime – passes. Barry hears his name and does not look up, feeling a sturdy hand on his shoulder. There's a moment when he can tell that the disembodied voice is speaking to him, but he can't respond. As a big, bulky shape moves closer, Barry presses his forehead against the shore of their shoulder, the soft pulse of dad-dad-dad sneaking into his fading consciousness.

The words are muffled, but Barry feels his dad's chest vibrate with each one, issuing commands in a calm, clear voice. Something warm and approaching heavy sweeps around Barry's shoulders, cocooning him, enclosing him in the space between his dad's chest and the shock blanket.

Then he feels his dad shift, moving back, and Barry's head drops down to his own chest, soft, half-aware sounds whining out of his throat with each not-enough not-enough not-enough breath. There's a thumb on his shoulder and Barry doesn't know what's coming but he doesn't flinch when the needle injects. _Doesn't work on me_ , he wants to assert, sluggish thoughts drifting aimlessly through his brain, sinking into a stupor as something heavier than his own eyes presses down on his senses, smothering them one-by-one.

Eyes closed, he winces when they try to move him. There's a very warm hand in his, then, too small to be his dad's, instantly recognizable even as his mind fishes for the right words. He doesn't need to say anything, the warm sweep of her thumb over his wrist centering him. There is movement and he is vaguely aware of a portable x-ray and Cisco and Joe's low, concerned conversation with his dad, but he doesn't move and no one asks him to. Staying put gives his breathing a chance to settle, his heart rate time to slow.

He feels his dad's hand on the back of his neck, sees him, feels his announcement before he tells Joe in a pained voice that he has to leave but will be back soon. He clearly doesn't want to go and Barry doesn't want him to, either, but his dad still releases him, setting him adrift, alone.

And Barry drifts away.

When at last the painkillers take full effect, he opens sleepy eyes. He knows that they still have to catch their bad guy, but it's nice to pretend for a moment that he doesn't have to.

However, reality is intrusive, and Barry cannot ignore the stakes. Unlike Oliver and his team, no one else will step in for Barry if he does not act. They've already lost Caitlin; he can't let anyone else get hurt on his watch. He gave up his speed to protect Wally; now he needs to protect them, Speed or no Speed.

It's a tall order. For the moment, he's content obliging simple requests, including holding up his own shirt so someone – _Iris_ – can loop a soft wrap around his chest. The pain is still there, but it's a manageable ache, sore like a hard round of boxing. Even though it wraps snugly, it does not restrict his breathing, each slow breath further calming his agitated senses.

Iris works methodically, steady and gentle. His chest hurts – a lot – even with the painkillers, but he knows that he can survive – indeed, has survived – worse. Dwelling will not change reality: acknowledgement will not smother pain. When Iris finishes, he does not give voice to the lingering pain, focusing instead on Griffin Grey.

Griffin Grey, the Man of Steel – except, no, that's Girder, Tony Woodward. Griffin Grey is the Superman, capable of lifting a two-hundred-pound barrel and chucking it at Barry as if it weighed no more than a baseball. Griffin Grey, aging at an astonishing rate, rushing headlong towards a premature grave with wide-eyed terror, as afraid of his own demise as Barry is of his speedlessness.

Jesse provides a welcome distraction. She talks about mutating cells and Grey's over-oxidization leading to rapid cellular degeneration, breaking down his body on a breathtakingly accelerated timeline. Most people wouldn't experience the cumulative effects of that damage for almost sixty years. Grey had aged nearly twenty years in one encounter, acquiring gray hair and worried lines around his eyes.

Despite the anomalous report to hold his attention, Barry can't ignore the thu-thump pain of his heart in his chest. The discomfort bows him, hands on the rail in front of himself for balance. His chest aches, but Barry holds his ground, needing to be part of the conversation.

Even so, he can't help but think about how bad Zoom's first encounter would have been if Barry hadn't had his Speed. With its healing effect, the damage still hurt like hell, worse than anything he'd ever experienced, but this – without his speed, even the relatively minor injury is agony. Barry knows without a shadow of a doubt that he would not have survived his first meetup with Zoom, had he not had Speed Force to protect him. He'd forgotten how much being human hurt, how exhaustible and fragile he was underneath all of that lightning.

Then Jesse says that their meta will succumb if he ages too quickly and it clicks: _I have to wear him out_. Oddly enough, the commitment to a second encounter doesn't faze Barry. He walks slowly towards his suit, instinctively pulled towards safety – even former safety – and looking up at that brilliant red mask, wondering if he as solely human can ever possibly wear it again.

 _No_.

"I gotta get back to the station," Joe says promptly, trailing after Cisco and Jesse, leaving Barry and Iris alone.

He thinks, _I should go with you_. But he doesn't move. It's like Joe said: _I'm not eager to turn into a human punching bag_.

The pain in his chest is a stark reminder that the suit never belonged to him, that his lifestyle never belonged to _him_. They belong to The Flash, and The Flash alone. Helping Joe solve metahuman cases isn't Barry's area of expertise; it's The Flash's. Without The Flash – without The Flash, this lifestyle will kill him.

 _You can't quit_ , Barry thinks, wrapping an arm around his chest, again, like an old gesture, a forgotten means of comfort. _That's not an option_.

Stepping up beside him, Iris asks, "Are you okay?"

Barry doesn't smile; he can't bring himself to put levity into his response. "No, not really." There's a literal and figurative bite to it that tires Barry out even more than the painkillers. _I'm not going to survive this_ , he thinks, oddly resigned to the idea. Too many people have died on his watch; maybe it's time for him to repay the reaper with his own life.

 _I'm not going to survive this_ , he repeats, each splintering pulse of pain an adamant reminder that he isn't built to go up against metahumans. The Flash is.

 _What were you thinking?_

He already knows: he was thinking about them. The city. His undying need to protect it. It always comes down to one thing: _I have to try_. No matter what the costs are, no matter how high the stakes, he has to do something.

Still, when he looks at Iris – at the _point_ of everything that he does – he can't help but feel a profound relief. Everything he has done has led to them being here. Alive, in spite of their experiences – their failures. It stirs nostalgia, his voice low as he explains, "You know you were the first person I saved after I got my powers." She lifts an eyebrow, looking at him. He elaborates: "We were out on a walk and we were talking about Eddie and how you were with him."

 _I couldn't save him; I couldn't save any of them_.

It still stings, more than a year later. Barry knows it might never stop hurting, even if it does quiet down. It's oxidation, a necessary evil. _We all age; we all die._ Some sooner than others.

Two years have passed since the particle accelerator exploded, but Barry feels a dozen lifetimes older. Like he's seen too much, done too much, changed too much to be sustained. It has to crash. _It has to end_.

Nursing his ribs, he muses over the culmination of it all. It can't be sustained. Overexertion would slow down Grey. It would do the same to him, too.

It had already taken a number on him, he reflects, wincing.

"I was thinking to myself how I missed a lot while I was in that coma." _All of that lost time_. It was the longest dream he never had, a reality he could only believe on hearsay, a reality he couldn't trust as intuitively as his own name.

One question can still shake him from a dead sleep at night, persistent, ringing, like it belongs to another person: _Did that happen?_

They tell him it did, and Joe wouldn't lie to him. Iris wouldn't, either.

 _Not this version of them_.

Pushing the thought aside, he looks at her, sees _her_. Grounds himself. "And then all of a sudden, those cars came at us."

They were talking about Eddie, pettiness creeping into the space between them, but the moment those cars came— "It was like the world froze. Like you and I were the only two people in the world."

Shaking his head, he admits, "I didn't even know what I could do yet, but I knew that I could save you. And I did." He sighs, heavy, torn, craving a reprieve. He doesn't have the time – he's on the clock again, human-time, not speedster-time. It's an adjustment.

 _You were living on borrowed time_.

Borrowed powers, borrowed heroism, borrowed life.

Time's up.

"And now, I don't know. I don't … I just don't even know who I am anymore or who I'm supposed to be."

Iris looks at him and says simply, "Barry, you're supposed to be the same guy that you've always been. Suit or no suit … that guy is a hero."

 _I wasn't a hero before The Flash_ , Barry thinks.

He looks up at that suit like it's sentient, like there is someone there, someone watching him, assessing him. _Considering_ it. Barry wants to reach out and take what he wants, but he knows it's not his call to make. _You're just a young man who was struck by lightning_ , Eobard once taunted him, pointing to a legacy that did not belong to him.

Shifting his weight onto his opposite foot, Barry winces as heat spills across his side. In a tight, hurting voice, he announces, "I need to sit down."

Iris nods, letting him limp past her before putting a hand on his lower back. "Take it slow," she advises.

 _No alternative_ , Barry thinks ruefully.

It helps to sit, Iris in the chair across from him. Some of the dizzying pressure to be the hero fades. Right now, Joe is taking care of the CCPD and Cisco and Jesse have a plan to take down Grey and rescue Harry. All Barry has to do is wait for them to do their thing. He has to let his teammates pull the sled for a time, trusting their strength in the absence of his own.

 _Can you do that?_

Looking at the suit, at his stomach, Barry bows his head.

 _Do you have a choice?_

Then his dad walks back in the cortex, a subdued hey-slugger grin in place. "Hey," Barry says.

"Don't get up," his dad replies.

Barry ignores him, grunting a little as he levers himself onto his feet. Stepping forward, he wraps his arms around his dad. "I've missed too much time as it is," he reminds his dad.

As long as he still has some time – however painfully it might be spent – he has a chance to dwell on what matters in his life. To savor his family, his friends, who he _is_ underneath the red mask. Not just a weapon to be directed, not just a punching bag, not just a target.

 _That guy is a hero_.

The suit and lifestyle may belong to The Flash ( _and it will kill you_ , the impulse warns, too-close-to-home), but the time belongs to Barry.

 _Heal._

 _Get strong._

 _Strike back_.

It's what he does back. Joe was wrong: he isn't a human punching back. He can take a beating, but he doesn't let it deter him from his goal.

 _Take down Grey_ , he thinks, letting go of his dad. _Take down Grey, get back Harry, and rescue Caitlin._

He can do that. He can survive long enough to take down Grey. To get back Harry. To rescue Caitlin.

 _Breathe._

 _Get up._

 _Go_.

To The Flash, the order is effortlessly obeyed. There is no upper limit on The Flash's endurance scale, only the point when the human succumbs. To The Flash, Grey is merely a distraction, a non-concern.

To Barry, Grey is a human being capable of profoundly altering his family, taking Harry out of his life.

And if there's one thing Barry knows?

There are no limits on what he will do for family.


End file.
